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Democratic Town Committee Chairman
Marc Bradley
knows why Mayor Richard Moccia announced his intention to run for re-election so early. "He may think that it will change our plan, but it won't," Bradley said. "We're not concerned about it. We're not going to run our campaign on Mayor Moccia's schedule."

Bradley said the Democratic Party would continue to deliberate on a challenger and to develop a plan for Norwalk, "something that's been sorely lacking in the last few years." He said Norwalk has problems that are "under addressed:" schools, "soaring property taxes" and crime. "It has nothing to do with the police force, it has to do with the allocation of resources and the investment and attention that the current administration has put toward that," Bradley said. "And crime, specifically violent crime in the inner-city, is really becoming a serious problem. And it's not just a South Norwalk problem. It's a Norwalk problem."

Common Council member Nora King also criticized Moccia. "We have high taxes and we have developers who aren't willing to build here in Norwalk," she said. "Execute and get things done. We have a reputation as a city that doesn't move the education system forward. And I think it has gotten progressively worse in the past five years under Mayor Moccia."

King is "very, very confident" about the next election. "I think the Democrats are going to have a great candidate," she said. "I think we are actually going to beat him." Although she wouldn't name names, she said the candidate would support the Board of Education.

Bradley said he had sat in at a budget meeting where $5 million was cut from education. "They were going line by line through every single cut, saying, 'It's not a big deal, it's not a big deal, it's not a big deal,' and it added up to $5 million, averaging close to $200,000 a school," he said. "If that's not a big deal and that doesn't affect kids, then I think folks are missing something."